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Saturday, March 7, 2015

Morte, Amore, Morte

I'm ashamed to say that counting this record, I only have 2 physical releases from Sam McKinlay, aka The Rita. HNW pioneer who's status as the genre's supreme lord perseveres to this day. A personal favorite, and one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to creating harsh noise wall music and finding sounds. The level of true passion and effort Sam puts into finding his sound sources is staggering. And his incorporation and use of fetish in aesthetic and audio is legendary. This is a suitable wax partnership with the incredibly prolific Serbian noise wall warrior Dead Body Collection. All on black vinyl, 33 RPM.

I ordered this off of a random distro site, having no knowledge of this particular record. Any Rita is good Rita, ay? The thick, impenetrably heavy walls Sam is known for are here, kind of. Sounds to me like this recording is some of his rawer, less processed stocking worship. But without any proper information it's hard to determine. The low rumble, static crunchiness of this is texturally thrilling, but subdued. My personal preference of The Rita has always been his shark diving, aquatic landscape sourced recordings, which are pure punishing insanity. There's some good left and right channel interplay and variation of tones, but not much else to say.

Dead Body Collection fares a bit better on his side of this slab. "Morte, Amore, Morte", a track which proudly credits that there was no mastering done here. Cool? A windy, gushing white noise starts it off, which is quickly partnered with a top layer of brown, compressed static textures. Two elements that carry this track throughout. While this is also not a sonically mind-blowing offering, DBC won me over with the track's flow. A very nice mid-section which drops everything but the brown static, which sounds very anxious and invasive when it is the sole focus. Dropping into an ensemble of increasingly intense creepy walls. Good stuff.

Wonderful tidy packaging and presentation. A thick, glued sleeve with stark black and white fetish imagery, with a suitable lack of any information.

The Rita will apparently be coming to NY state this year with Richard Ramirez. I am so so excited!!!